First off, let’s make one thing perfectly clear, I have all the design sense of one of those cymbal playing monkeys, but for some reason or another, I enjoy watching some the interior design shows on HGTV: “Divine Design”, “Design on a Dime”, “Designer’s Challenge”, “This Small Space”, and “Home to Go”.
I have no idea why.
“Home to Go” and “This Small Space” both feature Peter Fallico. He has come up with a lot of interesting ideas. One I liked was to take one of those finish-it-yourself three shelf bookcases and make doors out of wooden shutters.
My favorite is Design Rules. It aired on BBC America. It’s a short run series that isn’t on anymore but if they release it on DVD I’m buying it.
The show has one of the Designers from Changing Rooms, the show that inspired Trading Spaces, and in each episode he goes over one design element like color, lighting, using patterns and textures, and so on. It’s really informative and after watching it you are far better prepared to make over a room in your house than watching any of those other make over shows.
Ah, HGTV. I blame my mom for my HGTV habit. She started me watching, although we prefer House Hunters and Curb Appeal to most of the interior design shows. Though Designer’s Challenge is excellent.
MY husband watches all those shows. It’s wierd, he never cared about that stuff before, but when we bought our current house it needed work. Between the pros and ourselves, we did a TON of work, including laying hardwood floors downstairs all by ourselves (about 1000 sf).
Now he watches that channel constantly, looking for ideas. The day he wanted to talk to me about water features, I thought his body had been taken over by aliens.
I know what you mean–they’ve got me hooked too. Lately I’ve been on a House Hunters and Double Agents (on Discover) kick, along with Designed to Sell.
There’s just something about seeing inside people’s houses that’s fascinating. When you drive past houses at night and their lights are on, do you ever wonder what’s going on in there? I’d like to be a fly on the wall. I just wonder what the people’s personalities are like and how they get along together. Is that weird?
Count me in as an addict. I think I went 10 years without actually having drapery on any of my windows, and hardly a picture on any wall. (Hint: Mini blinds and sheers) Now my walls have color, my windows all have custom drapes made by me and the walls all have some sort of art work. I was never the artsy one in my family, relying mostly on my mechanical side, so I never got into the “softer” side of creating a home. It’s amazing what a few knick-knacks thrown around a room will do.
So you live in Dallas eh? Remind me to keep my blinds closed at night! Dang peeping Tom’s.
I think (and hope) you said that kiddingly. But of course you don’t know me, so let me say … no no no no – it’s nothing like that. I totally acknowledge and respect other people’s privacy. As for being the fly on the wall, I wouldn’t want to be there more than oh, say, thirty seconds! And only in the livingroom/diningroom/kitchen area. I’d just be curious about the decor, and the people and their relationship to each other–happy? grouchy? funny? smart? stupid? co-operative? It’s just a little wondering, no out-and-out snooping.
So…I thought once that it’d be funny if they had an insane person do a design show. But now I think they already do. The folks on “Home to Go” and “Surprised by Design” are all more than a little unhinged. I know when I see one of those big spools of telephone wiring I start wondering what I can do with that in some poor unsuspecting person’s home…
I like Divine Design and Designer’s Challenge, though.
These programmes are wall-to-effing-wall on Limey TV. We even have whole channels dedicated to them. But that at least has its upside: I’m currently, ahem, “resting” and if it weren’t for them I’d just sit in front of the box all day. As it is, I am driven out of the house and can do useful things like researching nonsense in the National Archives in Kew …
Me too, I love glancing in people’s windows as I drive past at night. And yes like you, not in a Peeping Tom sort of way, but instead in a “people have whole other lives and worries and ways of living, ones that I’ll never know about, but anyway I can see what color they painted their walls” sort of way.
I love the design shows too. My favorite is House Doctor on BBCA and Designed to Sell and House Hunters. Designers Challenge is great too as is Designing for the Sexes.
But you know who does the best work on TV in my opinion? Thom on Queer Eye. His work is always FABULOUS, very liveable and classic. Of course he’s got mucho more budget than some sad $2000 to work with. Sometimes I admit I watch these home design shows and think to myself “I’d never hotglue a string of plastic beads to my lampshade” or whatever cheapie-cheap method they are using to gussie up someone’s junk.
Love Sensible Chic too, because that is really helpful…ways to translate a very expensive design like you see in a magazine into a real world budget. Love it, love it and want the book.
Glad to see others love HGTV - my husband gives me a lot of good-natured ribbing about how much I watch it!
Count me in as a fan of Queer Eye’s Thom, too. Even when he’s made choices I wouldn’t even consider, he has a knack for pulling it all together beautifully.
On the whole, I like these home makeover/DIY shows, although I draw the line at hot-gluing anything to a wall. I did that with a high school pennant when I was 14 and I STILL haven’t heard the end of it from my mom.
Mr. Blue Sky - don’t be askeered of tools. My toolbox started with a hard-soled shoe and a butter knife just ten years ago, and now I have my very own bench grinder and Sawzall! Just practice with non-motorized stuff first.
I managed to escape the initial onslaught of design shows because I was too cheap to get cable. But then I graduated and got a (slightly) better job and got cable. Then…they got me.
First, I was hooked on Trading Spaces. I’ve found something useful in every room, eventhe ones I ultimately think are atrocious. Most recently, I’ve gotten hooked on Debbie Travis’ shows (Painted House and Facelift). She used to annoy me, but now I think she’s great. Her designs always look so rich, where the TS folks’ rooms can sometimes look flat (too much MDF).
I even watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Monster House. Those are just for entertainment.
Count me in as one who like to “look through the windows”–but it’s always as I drive by and catch glimpses here and there. No hiding in bushes for me.
I’m also drawn to HGTV. My favorite is “Decorating Cents” and (hold on, my brain is dying a slow and painful death here…) the ones where they try to sell their houses…It’s on A & E.
You mean someone other than Hildi, from Trading Spaces? I don’t think anyone can top her moss-glued-to-the-bedroom-walls-with-Liquid Nails craziness. (Although there was the sandbox-in-the-bedroom show…) But, that would be Hildi being more psycho than Hildi.
It started simple. A few episodes of Trading Spaces on the weekend, or maybe one to wind down after work, you know? So we experimented a little bit… Trading Spaces Family, tried a little While You Were Out. My friends said, “Rick, Sharron, you’re addicted,” but I said, “No way, man! I can stop anytime I want to!” Then I… I…
(Group member: Go on, Rick. It’s okay. You can tell us.)
…I started trying the hard stuff - Extreme Home Makeover. Painted House… for God’s sake, I’d even watch In A Fix to get my fix. My wife is hooked on The House Doctor… I have to stop! I have to stop!
Confession time, me and Mrs Gargoyle sing along with the “Divine Design” jazz-scat theme song…
“Sweedow, bu bu bu bow wow, sweedow bup bow wow wow wow…
scooby booby bubby bibby bu bu bu biddy biddy
Bu bu bu bow…bu bu bu bow dee wow…bum… bum… bum …yeah!”
So do we. The Home and Garden channel and the Do It Yourself network. Plus they’ve invaded other channels - WE, Style, either TLC or Discovery, the regular network stations etc- as well. It being a huge craze across the pond would explain why about 1/2 of the BBC-A’s lineup is also design show, though.
I’ve never watched an entire episode of Trading Spaces. I could only sit through about half an episode each of that and Guess Who’s Coming To Decorate, there’s just something about non-professionals trying to get things done that turns me off.
